Year: 2014

This article was originally published on RealMoney.com on December 18th at 12:00pm EDT There are five stages of selling during a severe pullback like the one we have just witnessed in oil and energy-related stocks. 1. The Facts Come to Light (Two Months Ago) Actual data points start to surface, which imply the price is too high — Oversupply (coinciding with a…

This article was originally published on RealMoney.com on December 1st at 12:00pm EDT Despite the fact that oil’s precipitous decline began five months ago, it is only now that it is really front and center. At this point we all know that Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) leaders met on Thanksgiving Day and agreed not to cut production (from the current…

This article was originally published on RealMoney.com on November 20th at 10:30am EDT I think the topic of risk has been so misunderstood among investors, large and small, that I want to explore it a bit here. After the cataclysmic disaster that was 2008-09 we saw a plethora of funds emerge with built-in risk management controls. Those were strategies focused so hard on…

This article was originally published on RealMoney.com on November 7th at 4pm EDT Is oil’s freefall over? Today it seems the only story garnering front page headlines is what’s happening with the price of oil and what it means for the US economy—and its consumers and corporations. In the last year Brent Crude Oil has been as high as $115 and as low…

This article was originally published on RealMoney.com on October 23rd at 2pm EDT The US Dollar’s recent strengthening against other major currencies may have slowed, but it has not stopped—and it has certainly not reversed course. As we have seen with Quantitative Easing, the results of a massive shift like this do not always show themselves immediately. And it has been massive. Below…

This article was originally published on TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com on 10-17-2014 The Six Flags are Anxiety, Denial, Fear, Desperation, Panic, and Capitulation. Back in June we published a piece called “Next Stop: Euphoria” in which we discussed the cycle of investor emotions, and argued that we were rapidly rounding the bases of excitement and thrill. It just felt that we were closing…

This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on September 26th, 2014 at 6:00am EST There seems to be a general consensus among market commentators and investors that rising interest rates will be good for US banks. In anticipation, bank stocks like Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) have had…

A headline this week that is getting no small amount of attention is that CalPERS—one of the largest pension funds in the world—is “exiting hedge funds.” More specifically, CalPERS is eliminating their $4 billion of exposure to hedge funds and “funds-of-funds,” citing high fees (in conjunction with mediocre performance) as their primary reasoning. CalPERS currently holds more than $300 billion…

This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on September 12th, 2014 at 10:08am EST “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff.” – Will Rogers Applying this premise to the current investment landscape—what’s something else they ain’t making any more of? How about US Dollars? Sure, “they” have been “making more of them” for the past five years, but isn’t…

This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on August 18th, 2014 at 2:12pm EST Some of the biggest M&A news last week came from within the Master Limited Partnership (MLP) space. Pipeline mogul Richard Kinder, Founder and Chairman of the Kinder Morgan family of companies — Kinder Morgan Management (KMR), Kinder Morgan Inc (KMI), Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP), and KMI’s recently purchased…